


Muted

by CaptainOzone



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: 1x06: Jason Todd, Angst, Bat Family, Bruce Wayne is a Bad Parent, Gen, but also not a bad one, he tried, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-30 02:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16755982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainOzone/pseuds/CaptainOzone
Summary: “Why do you think he makes us wear those lame colors?” Jason asked.He didn't know, Dick realized, and it didn't matter how he felt about everything else, he needed to change that. He owed it, to the boy Robin used to be.





	Muted

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed Titans 1x06: Jason Todd. Like, there is no emphasizing how much I adored every second of it. Even so, I felt as though there was an AWESOME opportunity that they didn’t capitalize on, so here I am, writing it for myself. This idea may have already been addressed in other fics, but I thought I’d have some fun with it too. 
> 
> This isn't perfect. There's no way I could, in a single one-shot, unravel everything Dick must be feeling during this episode. I am nowhere CLOSE to capturing that complexity. Kudos to Brenton Thwaites for rocking it, though, through and through. 
> 
> Regardless, I hope you guys enjoy this!

_What in the fucking_ world, Dick thought, _was Bruce thinking?_

Answer: he probably wasn’t.

What a joke. The Batman, renowned throughout the Community for his intelligence and equally infamous for his paranoia and foresight... _not thinking_.

And yet, it was the only answer that made sense. What other answer could there be?

A second Robin. Dick had never meant for this to be his legacy. Never this. Robin was _his_. His name, his mistake, his burden to bear. Bruce had _no right_.

The man had a thick skull. Dick knew that better than anyone. And clearly, he hadn’t heard, much less absorbed, a single word Dick had screamed on his way out of Wayne Manor, for what he promised would be the last time. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh at the irony of it or if he was about ready to vomit all over the elevator floor.

To be perfectly honest, he’d probably do both, if the kid weren’t standing right next to him.

Jason looked largely immune to the length of the silence between them, his fingers clutching at a briefcase identical to his own. Dick drew his gaze away, fighting away the unease crawling up his spine, swallowing over bile and questions and accusations threatening to fly from his lips.

He couldn’t stop one from slipping out anyway. “Why are you doing this?” Jason didn’t look at him, and realizing it was a bit of a loaded question, with any number of answers, Dick specified, “Why do you even want to be Robin?”

There was a huff of laughter from Jason. “Are you kidding?” he asked, as though he thought Dick was absolutely insane. “This is the dopest gig ever.” And Dick could hear it, in Jason’s voice, the thrill of the suit, the excitement of the life, the _joy_ of being out there on the streets, at his side. It all rushed over him the more Jason spoke, an addictive nostalgia, sickly bittersweet. Dick shoved it down and away, fury rising to replace it.

The poor kid was totally eating out of the palm of Bruce's hand. The same way he had been, once.

No longer.

“Hanging out with Batman,” Jason was listing, practically bouncing with enthusiasm, “kicking bad guys’ asses, being famous, driving the goddamn _Batmobile_ —”

He trailed off, shaking his head, and Dick froze, unable to believe what the _fuck_ he just heard. There was a beat of silence, and he turned to the kid. “He lets you drive the Batmobile.”

And Jason gave an unapologetic, casual shrug that read: _yeah? And what of it?_

Un-fucking-believable. 

“Wouldn’t you rather have your own name?” Dick asked, and he had to work hard to modulate his voice. “Like ‘Sparrow’ or ‘Blue Jay?’ For Jason?”

“ _Fuck_ no,” Jason said, scoffing. Something changed in his tone, and when Jason faced him again, Dick could sense the authenticity, the wholehearted belief, Jason had in what he said next: “The whole point is being Robin.”

Dick’s heart plummeted to his shoes, and then through the floor of the elevator, all the way down to the ground floor. He grit his teeth.

His name, his mistake, _his burden to bear_. Robin was broken, ruined, tainted, and there was no going back from that. Didn't Jason see that? That Robin was...?

"Batman needs Robin,” Jason emphasized, and Dick didn’t know if it was meant to sting, but it did, right into his very core. “Why do you think he makes us wear those lame colors?”

Dick swung his gaze back to Jason, incredulous for an entirely different reason now. 

“‘Cause we’re drawing fire!” Jason continued, and Dick’s heart twinged, lurching like a drunken racehorse. He felt sick again, his stomach churning with something rotten and sharp. 

That wasn't right. He was plenty bitter at Bruce, enough that he probably could convince himself to agree, to accept Jason's assumption as absolute fact, but that would be easy. Far too easy. His whole body rebelled at the very thought. Because  _that wasn't right_.

 _Fine,_ Bruce had said, years and years ago, after examining and questioning every detail of the sketched prototype Robin suit. Dick could remember beaming so wide it hurt, and even Alfred had allowed himself a small smile. _But only if we mute them._  Dick had lost the smile immediately, ready to argue. Again. But Bruce had held up a hand. I _know how important this is to you, Dick, but if you go out in that, as it stands...you’ll get yourself killed. Muted colors or no color at all. That’s the deal._

Dick had nearly forgotten that. He’d had to fight for his colors. If Bruce had had his way, Robin would’ve been wearing black and charcoal, just like Batman, and bundled in so much armor he'd've never been able to move—to _fly_ —out in the field.

Jason, he recalled, was still wearing those colors. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was one thing that Bruce had given his name away, replacing him and essentially erasing him from his life, as though they’d never been partners. It was quite another to see proof that, maybe...maybe, despite everything, Bruce did value their time together. That he did respect Dick, in some capacity, at least.

It was a weird dissonance of jagged pain, simmering anger, and warm gratitude all rolled up into one. Dick didn’t quite like it. It was far easier hating the man, so he focused on something else instead: how could Bruce have neglected to tell Jason about the suit’s history? What it _meant_? Did...Did Jason really think Bruce wanted them to endanger themselves? Just to make Batman's job easier?

He was _hardly_ the person to be defending Bruce. The man put a fucking _tracker_ in his arm, without his consent, and there would be hell to pay. Oh, would there. But this? This was...different.

This was about family. This is about what started it all.

He didn’t approve. He’d never approve. But apparently, Jason was Robin, and he had no say in that. There was, however, one thing he _could_ do, and that was preserve what little good Robin still represented; explain what Robin had meant to a kid, who, once upon a time, just lost his parents and wanted to ensure what happened to him happened no one else. Ever again.

“‘Look over here, assholes!’” Jason mocked, drawing Dick back to the present. “Then boom. The Bat lands and starts trashing ass.”

The elevator dinged softly, and Jason’s face broke out into a grin. Before the doors were even open, he was moving, clearly eager to scope the place out.

“Hey.”

Jason turned around, halfway out of the elevator, and quirked his brow.

“Those colors...” Dick swallowed heavily. “You're wrong about them. Those were my colors.”

The kid honest-to-God cocked his head. “Um, yeah? Duh. You were Robin Number One. Of course they were yours.”

Dick closed his eyes, and he couldn’t help but laugh a little. “No, I mean...Those were my family’s colors. In the circus.” He opened his eyes again and felt his lips twist into a sad smile. “We performed in those colors every show. They called us The Flying Graysons.”

Jason’s jaw popped open. _“...What_?” he asked.

“Yeah, Bruce hated them,” Dick admitted. “The colors, I mean. He had to tell me to tone it down."

“Wow, okay,” Jason breathed, and for the first time since meeting him, he looked truly awestruck and more than a little out of his depth. He very quickly hid the reaction and smirked, a bit of his humor returning to him. “That’s wild, dude. Next you’re going to tell me that Robin was—” He cut himself off, reading Dick’s expression. “What the fuck? You’re not serious? I always thought...” His tone faded to almost nothing as he mused, “I always thought Bats came up with the name.”

Dick shook his head, and that was enough of an answer for the kid, whose blue eyes continued to skip over his face, sympathy and new understanding radiating from every pore. Dick found he couldn’t look Jason in the face anymore. Couldn’t think about the case in his hands, or about the memories it contained, or about what Bruce had and hadn’t shared with both of them.

Time to quit the conversation.

“Here,” he said, handing his suit off to Jason. “I’ll go back and get our friend.”

Jason took the case and hesitated for a moment. “No wonder he didn’t want to tell you,” he murmured. “I thought he was just being dramatic.”

“He’s _always_ dramatic,” Dick disagreed. "That's kind of his M.O." He didn’t add that there were plenty of other reasons why Bruce probably didn’t want to tell him about Jason—or that one of those reasons had everything to do with the fact _Dick_ was the one who cut all ties and told Bruce to forget about contacting him.

 _I’m a pot calling a kettle black_ , Dick realized, with dark, empty humor. He found himself unsurprised. Just another thing to blame Bruce for.

Jason snorted. “Alright, true, but for what it’s worth...”

Dick paused, studying Jason, reallystudying him, for the first time. Suddenly, he wasn’t just the kid who replaced him, the one who slipped into what was once his life, the one Bruce was brainwashing. He was a kid standing before his hero, a hero Dick no longer was, wondering how in the fucking world he could fill the shoes he’d left behind.

 _Seriously, man,_ Jason had said, _it’s an honor to meet you_.

It hadn’t occurred to Dick then, back in the garage, that Jason hadn't just been subtly mocking him. He'd been telling the truth.

_Bruce knows how badly I’ve always wanted to meet you—pick your brain, catch a couple of pointers. He’s all ‘go for it, bro!’”_

It’d been a long time, Dick realized. It’d been a long, long time since he’d seen that in someone else’s eyes. He’d forgotten what it meant, what it looked like. He _was_ a hero to this kid, somehow. Robin...everything about Robin was so corrupted now that Dick could hardly wrap his mind around it, but in Jason's eyes was a reminder that Robin had, at one point,  _meant_ something. Robin had meant something to him, to Gotham, and to those he saved.

And to Jason too.

Looking at the kid in front of him, reassessing his earnestness, his passion, his eagerness to prove himself—to Dick, to Bruce, to the whole world—Dick thought maybe...maybe Robin could mean something again. Maybe Jason could wash away the stains Dick left behind.

Maybe.

If Bruce didn’t help ruin this one, too, that is.

Jason didn’t say anything more, but Dick didn’t need to hear it. “I get it,” he said, the knot in his chest loosening. He wasn't happy about this—he doubted he ever would be—but he _did_ understand, at least a little bit more. “Thanks, Jason.”

Jason beamed, and this time, Dick couldn’t help but return the smile. It was tentative, and full of reservations, but it was also genuine.

It was a start.


End file.
